Sometimes you’ll get angry with your counsellor. As uncomfortable as this is, it can be a good sign - a sign that you're doing the work that needs to be done.

From time to time, your counsellor might comment on something you weren’t ready for them to hear, or they might ask for payment for a session when you didn’t think payment was due, or they may make a judgement call that doesn't feel right to you.

This article is written to help you decide what to do when you feel your therapist has done something wrong.

Before we look at your options, I want to explain a few principles we use in therapy that have a bearing, here.

Counsellors Are Meant To Challenge You Sometimes

A brief look at AI therapy vs. 'real person' therapy might help illustrate this. One of the differences between human and AI therapists is that chat bots, AIs, and language models are designed to agree with you by default – regardless of what you say. This can lead to AI Psychosis, as the bot is enabling you. A therapist, on the other hand, should challenge you if they think you’re holding an unhelpful belief or doing something harmful to yourself or others.

It’s less validating, but sometimes it’s necessary.

This can be a painful experience if you have RSD (Rejection-Sensitive Dysphoria), but it can also be a good opportunity to explore how your RSD affects you and how else you might respond to it. There have been a few occasions where I reached out to clients to check that they’re coming to a session if they’re late, or to remind them to pay, and it triggered their RSD so they stopped working with me. It’s a shame to see clients leave over an admin issue, and I believe that incidents like this are worth working through.

Challenging unhelpful beliefs and behaviours is a therapist’s job. We wouldn’t be earning the money you pay us if we didn’t. It should be done with sensitivity, but it’s also important we get the message across.

Autonomy and Authority

Authority is a social construct. Organisations, such as corporations, exist that create hierarchies, and if we want to stay within the organisation, we have to submit to that hierarchy.

However, we can also grant authority to people who we don’t have a formal relationship with, such as friends, siblings, strangers who are dressed a certain way or who carry themselves with confidence. In fact, people give away their power in situations like that all the time.

Is a therapist an authority figure? Perhaps, because we have relevant expertise, but perhaps not, because you’ve paid us to do a specific job, and as the saying goes, whoever has the gold makes the rules. My take on this is that we are equals, but our differing roles in this relationship mean that our equality shifts from time to time, in both directions. I strive to keep our relationship as equal as possible and use my power in our relationship responsibly.

Your Therapist Is Not Perfect

When we first get to know a new person, and we like them, we may go through a phase of seeing them as perfect. I think that idealisation is part of that, as at this point we haven’t yet had the chance to see them mess up. People tend to act differently when they’re hungry, angry, frustrated, lonely, tired, or find themselves in a position of power. Sometimes, time is all it takes for a person to change - or at least, appear to change. As we get to know the person better, we have a chance to see them in any of the above states, and the relationship develops more nuance.

Your therapist is no different. It’s natural for a person to not be at their best sometimes; therapists should be actively invested in our own self-care so that we remain in good form to work with our clients, but life gets in the way sometimes. Bereavements are a common example of a sudden shift that your therapist may experience, and need a little while to adjust to.

The question to ask yourself here is, is this something you can repair together? Accepting imperfection in the other people in our lives is healthy; we can’t expect them to hide their shadow sides from us forever, any more than we can hide our own from them. Nurturing our relationships to survive the rupture that happens then, is an important relationship skill.

There is a limit to the amount of imperfection you'll find acceptable, and that's okay, too. Did your therapist show that they’re human, flawed like everyone else, or did they act in a way that was harmful to you?

When it’s a Good Idea to File a Complaint

Now that we’ve explored some of the dynamics in a therapeutic relationship, let’s discuss your choices.

The first thing you must do is assess whether this is something you can resolve with your therapist. Therapy is largely about learning how to develop healthy relationships, and the ability to resolve conflict with your fellow human beings is an indispensable skill. Once you’ve reached out to your therapist's professional body to make a formal complaint, you may not be able to discuss the matter further with your therapist, so this should be your first recourse.

Reach out to your therapist’s professional body if you believe they’ve behaved in a way that’s harmful to you. Examples of this include, but are not limited to:

• breaking your confidentiality
• discouraging you from conducting your own research on the state of your mental health
• ignoring your questions
• revealing information about themselves (“self-disclosure”) excessively
• shaming you

Professional bodies have complaints procedures, such as this one. Your therapist’s professional body should be listed on their web site and/or contract.

To Finish Up

Handling conflict with another person can be difficult, but therapists are trained to be comfortable with conflict, including confrontation, to help their clients do the work they came to do. It’s a good idea to talk it through with your therapist unless they do something grossly unprofessional, so if you can, repair the rupture together.

Credits: Photo by freestocks.org on Pexus.